Amazon has kid-friendly versions of the Kindle, Fire Tablet, and Echo Dot — here’s what makes them different

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Amazon's Kids Edition versions of its Kindle e-reader, Fire Tablet, and Echo Dot are among the best gadgets you can get for your child.

Each one has the same hardware as the version made for adults, but the Kids Editions come with perks, including a case, two-year warranty, and a one-year subscription to Amazon FreeTime.

Amazon FreeTime is a service that gives your child unlimited access to more than 20,000 kid-friendly apps, games, books, and movies, which they can enjoy on these devices.

Each of these gadgets also comes with parental controls you can control through an app on your smartphone to make sure your child only has access to the content you feel is appropriate.

When it comes to getting truly worthwhile tech for kids, your options are fairly limited. Unless you're buying a tech-focused STEM toy, your child is probably going to reach for your phone or tablet, rather than settling for a worse experience.

The choice to give your kid their own device that they can use freely and understand easily without running into inappropriate content is tough. That's why Amazon's Kids Edition tech stands out. Instead of making dumbed-down hardware that runs dumbed-down software, the company makes child-friendly versions of three of its hottest gadgets: the Echo Dot, Fire Tablet, and Kindle.

All three of the kids' versions have the same hardware as the standard Echo Dot, Fire Tablet, and Kindle, with software that's tweaked to be more child-friendly, including parental controls that you set through an app on your phone. The Kids Editions of Amazon's hardware come with a two-year, no-questions-asked warranty, protective case, and a one-year subscription to Amazon's FreeTime service.

The benefits to FreeTime vary from device to device, but a subscription entitles your child to access kid-friendly media for free. FreeTime costs $2.99 a month on its own. I've broken down the key points to all of Amazon's Kids Edition tech below to help you get a better understanding of why Amazon has become one of the leaders of kid-friendly tech.

Amazon's line of kid-friendly tablets has recently been updated to include three models: a 7-inch, 8-inch, and 10-inch version, perfectly mimicking its regular Fire Tablet line. FreeTime on the Fire Tablet Kids Edition allows your child to access 20,000 free apps, games, videos and books, which are appropriate for kids aged three to 12.

By adjusting the Fire Tablet Kids Edition's parental controls, you can ban certain types of content outright, or allow access to them only after certain criteria have been met. For instance, you can lock access to games entirely or make them inaccessible unless your child has spent a certain amount of time reading.

The tech specs between the three tablets do vary a bit, but the only thing you should be aware of the difference in battery life. Amazon says the 7-inch tablet gets eight hours of battery life, while the 8-inch and 10-inch models get 10. It's also important to know that you can upgrade the storage of all three tablets by popping in a MicroSD card, which is a major reason to consider getting the Fire Tablet Kids Edition for your kid instead of an iPad.

Beyond kid-focused apps, you can also choose to load popular ones like Netflix or YouTube onto the device at your discretion. The tablet comes with a child-friendly browser built in, so your kid can have the freedom to surf the web without seeing anything inappropriate.

The Kids Edition of the Echo Dot is different from the standard version in one big way: It has a child-friendly version of Alexa. That means certain functions, like ordering items off of Amazon, are disabled and that this version of the Echo Dot answers questions, like "where do babies come from," more appropriately.

FreeTime on the Echo Dot Kids Edition includes access to ad-free radio stations, access to 300 audio books, and kid-friendly Alexa skills from Disney, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, and more. You can choose to load regular software (in the Dot's case, Alexa skills) at your discretion, and the Echo Dot Kids Edition is smart enough to filter out explicit music tracks from Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify.

Beyond the limitations I outlined, the Echo Dot Kids Edition functions identically to the regular one, which means your kid can control certain smart-home accessories, like the smart light bulbs in their room.

Amazon's first kid-friendly gadget was this version of the Kindle. FreeTime on the Kindle allows your child to have free access to all of the same books Amazon offers on the Fire Tablet Kids Edition, including Harry Potter, Pete the Cat, and Curious George. Additionally, Amazon Prime members can load more than one thousand titles for free through various membership perks.

FreeTime also allows parents to monitor how much their kid is reading and to set goals.

The Kid version of the Kindle has a few built-in software features to help your kid become a stronger reader. The two biggest ones are a vocabulary builder, which is a collection of all the words your kid has looked up (plus their definitions), and a feature called Word Wise.

Word Wise detects difficult words on a page, and automatically displays an easy to understand definition on top of it, so your kid won't have to pause reading when they encounter a word they're unfamiliar with. These features, on top of the library your kid will have access to from the moment they turn their device on, add up to a system that encourages children to discover new favorites, and read them without any additional help.

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